Holy Crap! - Well, at least they’re honest…
Let me reiterate: HOLY CRAP! OK, let’s play “How many things are wrong with this picture?”:
1. The first and most obvious abomination in this ad is that the wine is called “Layer Cake” - yes, that’s right, “Layer Cake”…you know, everybody’s favorite dark, fudgey, luscious, DESSERT!!! As if Australia doesn’t already have 470 too many thick, flabby, over-extracted, hyper-alcoholic “red” wines!!! OK, I guess that there are boatloads of folks who dig this kind of marmalade-wine, but this name borders on the vulgar…
2. The second thing that LEAPS from this ad is the tag line: “RICH IS ALWAYS A GOOD THING”. This clearly can be taken two ways, both of which SUCK:
A - The word “rich” can be taken to mean “wealthy”, clearly implying that this wine, and perhaps more specifically, WINE IN GENERAL is just for the rich. Not only is this a complete falsehood, isn’t it just a bit insulting (and therefore ineffective as an ad campaign to the AVERAGE wine drinker) to those of us who aren’t rich?! Or are they trying to make an elitist out of your workaday ass - trying to make you FEEL like you’re rich by drinking THIS wine?
B - The second meaning of the word “rich” in this context is “unctuous”…OK, maybe sometimes we all crave a big, soft, sweet and inky drinky, but those who truly believe that “Rich is always a good thing” should really drop the whole wine thing, and take up drinking milkshakes and root beer floats. Blech.
Now I will freely admit that I have not yet tasted this wine, but with this TRAINWRECK of an ad campaign, would YOU want to pick up a bottle?…maybe I didn’t make myself clear - the wine is called “LAYER CAKE”. “LAYER CAKE”.
This whole “thing” embodies everything I HATE about wine from the top of its screwtop head to the bottom of its deep-punted feet. Your thoughts?
TOM CIOCCO
ADDENDUM - I managed to land a bottle of this to taste - here are my notes:
Opaque black-purple color. Nose of super ripe, intense blackberry fruit with mocha underlying. “Sweet and sour” plum fruit (artificially acidified?) in the mouth. Dense and chewy texture. Ultimately a bit hot (noticeable alcohol), over-extracted, heavy-handed, and flabby with a quite bitter and alcoholic finish.
No surprises here. This is classic, palate-punishing Aussie Shiraz - too much to drink on its own (at least for me) and aside from a plate of pulled pork barbecue or braised short ribs, this pairs well with precisely nothing. I want to put water in it, much in the same way that one has to dilute Coke syrup with seltzer to make it palatable…when it comes right down to it, for me, much of Australia is just too hot for viticulture, period - like trying to grow oranges or lemons in North Carolina - feasible but not recommended.
TOM CIOCCO
The “Third Stream” wine closure
As the pro-cork and the pro-screwtop wine closure camps take turns bashing each other in their respective heads, a third alternative is slowly (and perhaps too slowly) cropping up: the glass closure. The advantages that this kind of seal has over both corks and screwcaps are pretty easy to identify. Glass closures beat cork hands down on “cleanliness”,reliability, convenience, and recyclability issues: no cork taint (”corked” wines), no chance of closure failure issues like crumbly corks breaking upon removal and falling into your wine, NCN (no corkscrew necessary), and the fact that these closures are glass, and can therefore be recycled just like the bottle that actually holds the wine.
Glass closures’ advantages over screwcaps are also multifold. The screwcap’s greatest disadvantage is one of image - for some, screwcaps are and always will be tacky - simply reminiscent of $1.99 bottles of rotgut, or even worse, soda pop. And while glass closures do not carry the history or the romance that corks do, since there is little precedence for these closures, there is no stigma attached to them either. Additionally, the actual “hands on” use of these closures is indeed a little more elegant than the screwcap: there is that capsule to cut and remove, and when the glass stopper itself is removed, there is that little suck of air into the neck. Granted, it’s not the “pop” of a cork (even though “popping” a cork is considered bad etiquette), but it’s a hell of a lot better than the “crack”, “scrape”, and “rattle” of opening a screwcap…
The other elements that might factor into this argument are two. First is the “re-sealability” issue which in my albeit limited experience with glass closures, leaves the new method about as efficient as the “hammer the cork back in the neck with the heel of your hand” process and perhaps a hair better than the protection a tightly screwed-down screwcap will provide. The biggest sticking point with the glass closure is cost. Corks can be more costly if the very finest quality and longest sizes are employed, but at least for right now, glass stoppers are more expensive to produce, though as harvestable cork oaks become more and more scarce, the scales may tip in the other direction later if not sooner.
Synthetic corks lately seem to be losing ground as fast as they gained it about 4 or 5 years ago.Yes they are “clean”, they are not as stigmatized as screwcaps, and are cheaper to produce than either corks or glass closures (not sure about screwcaps - anyone?), but they are an ecological nightmare, so the more environmentally conscious EU regulations have limited these closures, and the many eco-friendly west coast producers have self-regulated, and eschewed their use.
There are always the pros that go with the cons for each of these types of closures - which of these is the least of all evils for you?
TOM CIOCCO
